This is a BRILLIANT book. That 'I am the Doctor' speech at the end has me snivelling every time...especially as I thought the Doctor might actually be dead. I can't believe I fell for it after umpteen million miraculous escapes, but I knew how irritated Virgin was at losing the publication rights (well, they MUST have been desperate - why else produce all those Benny books?) and I thought they might just do away with the Doctor, and leave the BBC cope with it.

However...correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't notice an alien spaceship hovering over London during May 1997 (and the UN Secretary General does not have an Irish accent, and Elizabeth II was not, unfortunately, deposed). With a great stretch of the imagination - and the help of McCoy pointing out that humans manage to forget things like Yetis in the underground - the rest of the Doctor Who universe could just about be set in ours (OK - there was the Dinosaur Invasion. Not to mention BBC3). But here Parkin goes out of his way - with dates etc - to spell out the fact that we haven't got a chance of bumping into the Doctor, becuase whatever Earth he's wondering around on is not ours.

The other thing that gets me is the fact that the heroic forces of resistance (i.e. The Brigadiers) are referred to as 'Royalists'. Since Zaainal or whatever his name was was actually crowned King of England, the traitors who supported him should be known as royalists too.

Well, Emily, if it makes you feel any better, Lance is now writing books ("The Infinity Doctors") that some people doubt are even part of the Who universe, so maybe InfiniDocs can take place in ours...

Hey, that's a point...the only trouble is that if Infinity Doctors is set in our universe, then Earth should long since have got wiped out by the numerous alien hordes who feel the need to invade it every few weeks, since the Doctor was stuck on Gallifrey instead of being around to save us. Unless, of course, it was the Doctor's presence on Earth that drew the aliens, which is something I've always suspected ('wherever he goes, hell breaks out behind him' - or words to that effect, in Battlefield).

From memory, Ancelyn and Brig Bambera are in this one too, right? And married? Now, Battlefield is supposedly set in 1997 according to A History of the Universe. And this book is in May 1997... so it seems they didn't take very long to get married!

IIRC the first ref to them being married is in Head Games where by 2006 (IIRC) they have kids.

More clues to Doctor Who being set in another universe to our own:

1. Terror of the Zygons - There is a woman prime minister of England in the 70s.

2. Battlefield - There is a lake at Cadbury.

3. Devil Goblins From Neptune - The Beatles didn't break up in 1970, they continued on with two new members.

When did Thatcher come to power? Wasn't it 79? That's still the 70s...

Yeah, but that story was transmitted in 76.

True, but then what year were the UNIT stories set? Anyone hear a can of worms opening?

Ahhh, but the production team had no way of knowing that Thatcher would come to power in the future so I think her prime ministership (if it is her) in 'Terror of the Zygons' is more an indication of parallel universe.
And, if it isn't, well - there's still my second and third points (and I'm sure there's more elsewhere)

I believe it's been implied elsewhere that the female PM of "Terror of the Zygons" is not Thatcher, but is a different female politician (Shirley something-or-other).

Apparently Thatcher had become Leader of the Opposition by the time Terror of the Zygons was written - i.e. the production team were not striking a rare blow for feminism and for foresight so much as prophecying a Conservative victory. (I wonder how many Who fans voted Tory just so they could keep believing that the Who universe was the same as ours? Hmm...none, I should think.)

It would be Shirley Williams, Mike. She was Labour's Education Minister or something. She obviously looks rather like Tom Baker, because (as you've probably heard - it seems to be one of his favourite stories) he was once approached by someone who sternly ticked him off for shutting all the grammar schools, because they thought he was Shirley Williams.

It's interesting that, while Elizabeth II was not deposed as predicted in this book, that another monumental royal event occurred later in 1997 - the death of Diana.

That's the name! I kept thinking Shirley Jones, but she was Mrs. Partridge on the "Partridge Family" TV show (another American reference, sorry).

Believe it or not, I never heard that story. Funny, though.

Chris, sorry, but Diana dying is just NOT GOOD ENOUGH! Despite messing up the UK Gold schedule so that I had to wait another TWO YEARS to get a decent copy of the Armageddon Factor (they replaced it with Planet of the Spiders, can you believe that? Apparently the sight of the hospital in Armageddon Factor would have upset Diana fans. I'd have thought they'd be a LOT more upset by the fact that when OUR hero dies he promptly regenerates)...where was I? Oh yes, DESPITE messing up my video collection, Diana getting herself killed does not in any way compare with a big Martian spaceship appearing over London and deposing the so-called Queen.

Actually it was Christmas on a Rational Planet that first mentioned Elizabeth II's recoronation. It just didn't say WHY.

Why would the hospital have upset them? Any special reason?

Sounds a bit like the time two Red Dwarf Series IV episodes were held back from transmission because the Gulf War was on and the television station (BBC? I dunno, I'm not English) didn't want to screen them because it might upset more 'sensitive' viewers, the episodes being 'Meltdown' (which is fair enough since it concerned war) and 'Dimension Jump' (Hey? Just because Ace Rimmer flew a ship that looked a bit like fighter jet...)

I find it hard to believe that a copy of this is currently going for nearly £50 on eBay at the moment. Not only that, people are happily bidding for it.

I shall have to start scouring my local secondhand bookshops for other NA's to flog to DW fans with seemingly more money than sense.

Really? I bought mine for $2 from a used bookstore in Springfield, MA, USA.

Now, if someone could help me find a copy of "Lungbarrow" in good condition, I'd be really appreciative.

Actually i've just had a closer look and there are currently 3 copies on there (eBay UK) and the copy with the highest bidding is currently at £102!!!!!!

Why is this so sought after?

It's out of print, and it's the last one of the Virgin series. Also, I believe there was a smaller than normal print run, which would make it more collectable.

Actually, now that I've researched it, I think it's just a function of the way eBay works. Some bloke with the screen name "blackadder" has been bidding up the price.

Half.com doesn't have "The Dying Days", but they have "Lungbarrow" for $1.99. Maybe I'll give them a try.

It's good that there are so many devoted fans out there *Looking extremely guilty for making a 66-fold profit on a rather tatty copy of Happy Endings that I picked up in the library for 30p*

I heard that the line was erased so soon after The Dying Days that it never went to a second print run, unlike most other NAs. Lance Parkin is apparently going to publish 'The Definitive Dying Days' next year - getting round copyright issues by donating the proceeds to charity - so I wouldn't advise anyone to cough up extortionate sums for the book. Though I am rather worried about this 'definitive' business...hope he's not going to, well, elaborate on the original book (you know what I'm afraid of...)

So from what I have read here, I guess this book serves as the "pilot" for the Benny Summerfield novels.

I guess Virgin still owns the rights to Benny, even though they no longer have the rights to the Doctor.

You're correct. Recently, however, Virgin discontinued their run of Benny NA's (due to lack of interest, I guess). She does appear in some of the new audio adventures, sans Doctor again.

It wasn't entirely due to lack of reader interest - the editor left and there wasn't anyone to fight Benny's corner and the books weren't doing well (or badly) enough to matter much to Virgin either way. They then sold the rights to Big Finish to make a series of Benny audios (some original, some adaptions from existing Who and Benny books (and therefore uncanon - can you imagine Just War with the Doctor cut out? Neither can I, I just hope I never have to listen to it)), and then Big Finish decided to do a series of 'Professor Bernice Summerfield and...' books, which are doing exceedingly badly even though they're not actually that bad. Well, Prof BS & the Squire's Crystal isn't, anyway. For anyone who's interested, Jason has now been rescued from that other dimension, but the happy reconciliation has been slightly messed up owing to Benny being pregnant by some mentally subnormal wolfman thanks to her getting kicked out of her body for a few days (and into a Nazi gigolo's) by a Crystal Sorceress who got a bit carried away whilst in possession of Benny's body. Aren't you all glad you don't read these things?

For those interested this book is currently being serialised on line on the BBC web site (www.bbc.co.uk/cult). It is being put out a chapter a week according to the site.

And I can't help feeling sorry for the cretins who coughed up a hundred quid for it on eBay...

I found it at a used book store in Massachusetts for $3!

Not a bad way to end the series although the Doctor is understated, especially (and thankfully) in comparison to 'Vampire Science'. What happened to Alex Christian at the end? He just seemed to disappear. A few other things also gave the impression that some pages had been lopped off the end.

Have to agree with Emily about that speech. Lucky I wear sunglasses when reading it in public

I hope you realise I'm counting up all your derogatory comments about Vampire Science...

Actually - given that this is the first and last Virgin Eighth Doctor novel - I could have done with the Doc being a little less understated. I.e. actually APPEARING in the middle half of the book.

I hope you realise I'm counting up all your derogatory comments about Vampire Science...

Do I get a prize if I reach a certain number? You in leather with a whip telling me I've been a bad boy Perhaps a book that's decent in comparison? Something by Mick Lewis, perhaps...

Sadly, given that - as of that Mick Lewis comment - you are destined to be ripped to pieces the moment you set foot on British soil again...the nature of your 'prize' will remain somewhat academic.

to Emily: I feel that Diana's death was the best thing to happen to William and Harry - and to the British nation. She was a malicious figure in private.

Maybe long-term, but believe me, that outpouring of hysteria was SERIOUSLY damaging to the country and to any poor republican who had the misfortune to be living there at the time. Honestly, they couldn't have kicked up any more fuss if it HAD been a Martian spaceship instead...

I think it was more the "royalty in danger" of "Factor" that was Too Soon rather than the hospital.

Though "Spiders" has Lupton in his tweed jacket which isn't much better.... ;)

Spiders also has royalty in danger! The Queen Spider!

But she didn't look much like Diana. People watching the spider queen's death throes weren't going to be thinking 'She's just like Diana, a princess cut down in her prime by a cruel world.' With Armageddon Factor, they may have made exactly that comparison.

People watching the spider queen's death throes weren't going to be thinking 'She's just like Diana, a princess cut down in her prime by a cruel world.'

Humans are just SO NARROW MINDED.

Lance Parkin on writing for the Eighth Doctor in Dying Days:

'I didn't want to be distracted by the ephemera - the kissing, seeing into people's souls, the half-human question - so I concentrated on what this Doctor was like as a person' - but that's all there WAS to him on-screen!

'This Doctor doesn't need to plan anything because he is capable of brilliant improvisation' - I'm not sure that's true for most of the EDAs.

'The Doctor is like a precocious child: he sees everything as fresh, has operatic mood swings and is pedantically polite' - which bit of POST-REGENERATIVE TRAUMA are you somehow not getting?

The DWM review also mentions 'the Brigadier, a television character who has been nurtured and developed without being compromised in any way' - maybe not in The Dying Days (even I can allow him that 'God willing') but I rather felt the books compromised him with that pile of lovers, ex-wives and offspring...

I rather felt the books compromised him with that pile of lovers, ex-wives and offspring...

Oh, I hadn't seen anything yet *boggles in direction of the Lethbridge-Stewart novels*

Bookwyrm:

'We have Benny commenting to the Doctor that the Ice Warrior invasion of Earth in 1997 isn't in her history books and, more to the point, no one mentioned it at her wedding, which will happen in only 13 years' time and has Ice Warriors in attendance...We might just be able to accept this if it weren't for the line, presented in Benny's diary no less, that "much has been written about the battle of London"...She then goes on to quote one of the history books that she earlier denied the very existence of' - *wince*

'The Doctor describes himself as 1200 years old, which seems to jar with him having had his 1000th birthday only quite recently in Set Piece...as a parting gift, the Doctor gives Wolsey to Benny. Wolsey the cat. Whom we now have to presume is over 200 years old' - *Nods approvingly* The Doc obviously got all the medical and life-extension treatment for darling Wolsey that he signally failed to get for, say, dying Abigail or infertile Amy...

Oh, and apparently there's meta-commentary on Brexit, the Scottish Parliament and Donald Trump...

The Who Adventures: Working titles were 'Virginity Lost, Licence Revoked, Murder Eight and Morte D'Octor'.

BLIMEY.